Clarity

I think I've initiated a process towards clarity, for want of a better word to use. And one of the first steps in that process is developing a whole new set of expectations - and saying goodbye to the expectations that prevented me from seeing a lot of things for what they really are.  I think I'm starting to discover joy. I'm not sure I have it all down yet, but for now, I'm experiencing emotionally and spiritually facts I knew intellectually, that gratitude leads to humility which in turn leads to a different set of expectations. And the most memorable pleasures are the ones that are unexpected.

Madness

In this case, March Madness, a term used to describe the annual NCAA basketball tournament. My alma mater suffered a heartbreaking one point loss last night, ending a rather improbable run that started with four straight wins in the B1G tournament resulting in a B1G tournament championship, followed by two more wins in the NCAA tournament including a stunning tournament upset over #2 seeded Louisville.

The beginning of that run coincided with an incident involving my college basketball team in an aborted plane takeoff where the plane ended up leaving the runway, skidding across the airport, through a fence, and almost ending up in a ravine. The head coach gave the team the option of forfeiting the tournament, or trying to fly in the next morning. The team voted to travel and play, and the more they won, the more they began to attract the attention of the national media, who began to cover the story of how this near tragedy had had a galvanizing effect on the team.

This morning I saw a tweet from one of the players:

                                     STILL ALIVE

I just remember thinking two things:

How glad I am to be alive.

And how glad I am to go to Michigan.

And that got me thinking. Maybe my mentor was right in that I really hadn't come to grips with the fact that I almost died. It's a scary thing, but on the other side, there really hasn't been any gratitude. Not reminding myself everyday that it's great to still be alive might be the maddest thing of all.

Anniversary

A week ago, it was the fourth anniversary of my attack. I've been told it's a Russian custom to treat surviving such events like a birthday andin that vein, I went to dinner with some friends. The truth of the matter is that other things have not been going well so I wasn't really in a celebratory mood. But over the course of the meal, I was reminded that there was a reason why I'd survived such a thing. I'd lost sight of that.

Unfortunately, that revelation was tempered by the death of a friend that same weekend; one of my dance teachers, Wiley Simpson, who lost a battle with lung cancer. It seemed wrong to be celebrating breathing while a friend was having his privilege revoked. But it's time to get down to it. There's a reason I survived and I'm pretty sure I haven't accomplished everything I need to do.

Hopefully, this time next year, I can say I've made some serious progress; I've been on a plateau now for a while, and I need to move on.

Being Mortal

I just had something occur which has left me feeling very troubled.

I came to the public library to try and get some work done, and was seated at a carroll when I was approached by an asian male, mid 40's or older who just stood there until I looked up and made eye contact with him. He then told me that I was his father. I responded by telling him that he had mistaken me for someone else.  I kept repeating that as he persisted, asking me first to take care of him and then asking me to forgive him,

While a part of my brain registered the hurt and sense of abandonment he was projecting, my mouth was saying that I was not who he thought he was, and that he needed to step away, which he did. He walked away and sat down at a table nearby and continued to stare at me. So when a security person (yes, public libraries have security staff nowadays) happened by, I mentioned the incident and pointed the person out.

I don't know if the person is genuinely troubled, or was just working a scam. But I'm bothered that my sense of violated boundary overrode my sense of compassion. Apparently there *is* a limit even for someone who persists in trying to help the homeless even after nearly getting killed and can forgive the person that tried to kill me.

But maybe this will let me take off the blue outfit I seem to want to wear beneath my regular clothing as I get to be mortal again.

El Cid Revisited

When asked, I will continue to insist that the choices I made during the recuperation process were driven by the desire to preserve the group and the efforts to assist the homeless. Yet I must concede that my choices were and are driven by what is described by some folks in the counseling world would categorize as avoidant attachment disorder. I used to display a lot more of the characteristics that are associated with that attachment style than I do now, though I'd still identify myself as being dismissive-avoidant, although I think I don't have that much difficulties articulating my feelings. But I clearly do project independence and self-sufficiency, and I have learned not to expect support to minimize my opportunities for being disappointed.

I'm not going to figure everything out in the next 30 seconds, nor is it necessarily appropriate to get into a lot of my emotional history, but one thing that seems to be clear to me at the moment is that while I don't necessarily regret the choices I made, those choices came with a cost, and I've never acknowledged or mourned the cost and self imposed isolation I went through during the summer of 2013. Right now, it sucks.

Triage

This is a continuation of the previous post actually.

I have the ability to go into what I call triage mode - when something bad happens, I can compartmentalize my feelings and focus on the things I think need to be done. I did that the night I got attacked. The thoughts I recall going through my mind up until they put me under in OR.

1) you can't panic. you need to stay calm.
2) you're going to have to go to the hospital. someone needs to gather all the stuff and make sure that it and my car get home that night.
3) you need a ride to the hospital
4) take slow deep breaths. keep your heart rate normal.
5) get in the car
6) get someone to open a door into the ER
7) stay calm when the nurse confronts you and tells you that you need to register at the front desk
8) stay calm when the receptionist tells me to go back to trauma room one and they'll get my info later
9) remember to call kyle and let him know i'm ok while police officer is telling me they caught the person and the person said they heard voices saying to attack a church group whose teachings were sodomizing religion
10) make joke when surgical intern says "whoa" when blood spurts out of my wound
11) make another joke when intern jams his finger into my wound trying to staunch the blood flow
12) make another joke about my jeans being new as they cut them off my body.
13) stay calm until they finally put you under

I woke up to the sound of an alarm going off as I choked around my chest tube. A nurse came in and ran suction to clear away the accumulated mucus. I assumed it was Wednesday morning and my first thought was that i had to notify someone that I would be missing an appointment that afternoon, and I needed to call to cancel. But first they had to remove my chest tube. Then when they hand me my phone, the battery low message immediately starts flashing. I call someone trying to locate my car keys so that person can go get my cell charger. That person starts to spazz and refuses to listen to my request. I hang up. I call someone else who hopefully has my keys,, get his voicemail, and leave a message that my cell is about to die  and that my charger is in the upper left drawer of my desk when my cell dies. I finally leave triage mode as I now have nothing to do but lie there and hope my message is received. Of course, I neglect to mention that I am registered as Gustavo Perez.

So for the next forty seven minutes, I envision scenarios of being discharged naked and having to walk home because I have no means with which to contact the outside world and I leave triage mode and feel pretty much helpless - until Michael shows up with my cell charger. I never did find out how he convinced them to let him see me without knowing my alias. I have to ask him about that.

SAM-patra?

This is a play off the pun 'Cleopatra, queen of denial'; this week I was challenged to examine if I'm in sort of denial in terms of my coming to grips with the fact that I was attacked by someone with an intent to kill me, and I did in fact suffer a wound that should have killed me. I think I mentioned that I have a friend who (unbeknownst to me at the time) used to be a coroner, and when he examined my scar, his first comment was: "you're lucky to be alive." That was the first clue of the seriousness of my wound - no one at the hospital said a word to me up to when they discharged me. I think that's a large part of why it's always seemed somewhat surreal - the nonchalance of it all. Oh, you just happened to suffer an injury that kept you in ICU for the better part of a week, no big deal.

My mentor (who I meet with every two weeks) has observed that I've wrapped up everything neatly at an intellectual level, Early on I was able to depersonalize the event and ascribe a motive that I categorized as displaced anger. Or as my mentor might describe it, I found an answer that I could accept. But have I really looked into the abyss? Do i need to? Where exactly is this abyss? Does it mean going out to Patton State Hospital and looking into the face of my attacker?

I'd like to think that my willingness to consider the idea means I'm not in denial about any of this. But this is pretty much how I operate in moments of stress; I go into a zone and compartmentalize my emotions. I've been as much focused on the health of Tuesday nights as much as my own recovery. But then I am Tuesday nights in many ways - I've let it define me. Am I still in triage mode years later? I honestly don't know right now.

Being Intentional

It rained this week. As a matter of fact, it's rained every day this week, something the region needs because of the drought, but rain tends to impede me on various levels. As a consequence we didn't have many people show up at the park. Actually, only one regular showed up, and I blogged about that in the Barry's Kitchen blog.

After that person left, I noticed someone else camped out, that is to say, he was lying on a piece of cardboard some 30 yards away. I approached him thinking to offer him some chili and I discovered that it was someone who'd come for dinner in the past, someone I'll call Arnell. He's been on the street for a while. Talks a lot. Kinda non-stop, actually. A lot of it is typically about how he and his siblings were each cheated out of six figure inheritance by their uncle but how he's working to overcome that and create a career in the entertainment industry seeking anything and everything to get exposure. He bragged about completing a 4 figure gig and looking forward to getting that check in February and getting off the streets for good. I hope that works out for him.

He mentioned that he stopped coming around for dinner because he wanted to avoid being around other homeless people - the ones who'd adopted a passive stance and were content to get by. He gave examples of people now successful in the industry who'd been in circumstances similar to his but through persistence and perseverance had gotten their big break. He was willing to work as hard as it took to get where he wanted to be.

I bring this up because it's in contrast to what I've done all my life; I've coasted. Throughout my IT career every new job was through a referral or because a head hunter contacted me. I had certain skills and abilities that were in demand. The bottom line is that I need to become more aggressive in getting myself out there and being intentional about it. But there's a lot of inertia to overcome, and I confess that at the moment, I'm struggling with just getting my rear end out the door. But it has to be done. Even in the pouring rain.